Saturday, October 24, 2009

Headlines - Saturday

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is very close to rounding up 60 members in support of a public option with an opt out clause (screw you, Harry), and is continuing to push skeptical members. But they also say that the White House is pushing back against the idea, in a bid to retain the support of one goddamn Republican, Olympia Snowe.

I voted for Hillary.

###

"It's like undressing women in public, exposing their most personal issues on the Internet." - Lora Davis on OK's tattletale abortion law    Link
 
They should pass another law: Every time a man buys a condom, they post his name and personal info on the internet. When he gets home, he has to explain to his wife (who's on birth control) why he bought the condoms.
 
###

"Medical bankruptcies are an epidemic in the United States. Nearly 62 percent of all U.S. bankruptcies in 2007 were due to health care costs - and 78 percent of medical bankrupt people had insurance." -Zaid Jilani Link 

"Who gives a fuck?" -- The Republican party 

If you have $100K worth of insurance and you have a $250K heart attack, you better have $150K in savings or you're filing bankruptcy and losing your car and your almost paid-for home.

###

Poppy Decries Lack of Civility 
He got elected using Willie Horton rape fear 
Link

Excerpt:
There is a lot of unnecessary ugliness being thrown at President Obama, "people ought to be civil," as he said, and it's true that we should "worry about yelling at people and this yelling mentality" that has taken over our politics. He's also not wrong that cable news has a lot to do with the problem - our television discourse has, for the most part, devolved into a screaming match between operatives and journalists in the New York/DC corridor whose whole job it is to yell at each other (and sadly, that increasingly goes not just for Fox, CNN and the networks, but also for some of the left-leaning shows on MSNBC). And I'll even go out on a limb and say that he's not even wrong in suggesting that a portion of the progressive media seems obsessed with continuing to blame every problem on  W. Bush - even the problems continued by the Obama administration.

However, the origins of incivility in politics can be traced right back to Bush, the man now complaining about it. This is the guy who used what is history's single most powerful symbol of incivility - The Willie Horton ad...

###

From CNN:

A bear on ice skates attacked two people during rehearsals at a circus in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, killing one of them, Kyrgyz officials said Friday.

In the incident, which happened Thursday, the 5-year-old animal killed the circus administrator, Dmitry Potapov, and mauled an animal trainer, who was attempting to rescue him.

It is unclear what caused the bear to attack ....

Gee. Perhaps a bear doesn't want to wear freaking ice skates. Ever think of that?

###

This is exactly the right answer:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a blunt response on Friday to the latest broadsides from former Vice President Dick Cheney: "Who cares?"

In the latest exchange between old and new administrations, Mr. Biden rebuffed his predecessor's criticism about President Obama's handling of Afghanistan as "absolutely wrong." And Mr. Biden rejected the last review of the war conducted by the White House under former President George W. Bush and Mr. Cheney as "irrelevant."

They had their eight years, and their record speaks for itself. Why the hell the beltway media still have their lips planted on Cheney's behind is beyond me, but Biden got this exactly right. The answer to any question involving Dick Cheney's policy opinions is "WHO CARES?" And that goes double for his idiot daughter.

###

With his Freudian slip showing, Drinky McStagger says he regrets standing in front of the "Mission Impossible" banner

Ex-President Bush was in Canada yesterday to speak at a luncheon of the Montreal Board of Trade. Approximately 300 protesters gathered outside the venue, blowing plastic horns, throwing shoes, and burning the former president in effigy. The Vancouver Sun reports on what happened during Bush's speech:

Inside the regal Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, a relaxed-appearing Bush spoke with very few regrets about some of the most controversial moves of his presidency.

"I am confident that I made decisions based on principle, that I made calls as best I could, and I did not sell my soul," Bush told an audience of about 1,000 men and women at the $400-a-seat steak luncheon.

Bush also said that he regretted appearing in front of a "Mission Impossible" sign in 2003 during an address about the Iraq war. Of course, the sign actually said "Mission Accomplished." Maybe "Mission Impossible" would have been more appropriate.

###

SENATE APPROVES GAY HATE CRIMES/WAR BILL: The Senate finally approved after 10 billion years a measure to include gay people and all sorts of wacky gender hybrids under the "hate crimes umbrella," as part of a massive massive war/death/killing Defense Appropriations bill. Now gays can get married! NYT

###

You know you're crazy when....

Not news: Political columnist weighs in on the Conservative Bible Project: "I've seen some incredibly stupid and misguided initiatives by 'conservatives' in my day, but this one takes the cake."

News: It's conservative Bible-thumper Joseph Farah of worldnutdaily.


###

Poll: majority of 'real Americans' hate America

Just in time for Halloween: A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 73% of GOP voters say Congressional rethugs have lost touch with their base. Their crazy, tinfoiled, troglodytic dittomonkey base.

Just 15% of Republicans who plan to vote in 2012 state primaries say the party's representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Republican values.
Whatever THOSE are. Besides that whole "Keep the Govermint Outta Medicare!" thing.

For more good news for rethuglicans, see here and here.

###

US general/hero blasts Cheney over 'dithering' comment

National Security Senior Adviser Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who served more than 30 years in the United States Army and oversaw the training of the Iraqi military, responded to Mr Five Deferments' accusations on Afghanistan. Here it is, in its entirety:

The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters.

They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

As one deeply invested in the Armed Forces of this country, I am grateful for the senior military commanders assigned to leading this fight and the men and women fighting on the ground. But I dismiss men like Cheney who inject partisan politics into the profound deliberations our Commander-in-Chief and commanders on the ground are having to develop a cohesive and comprehensive strategy, bringing to bear the economic and diplomatic as well as the military power, for Afghanistan -- something Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld never did.

No human endeavor can be as profound as sending a nation's youth to war. I am very happy to see serious men and women working hard to get it right.

And...

Scion of revered gpuke icon blasts Cheney over 'dithering' comment

Saint Ronnie of Reagan's son Ron:

"Mr. Cheney's concern for the safety and well-being of American troops in Afghanistan would be far more touching had he not been so instrumental in sending them into harm's way in the first place -- before losing interest as he pursued his unnecessary war of choice in Iraq."
Heh. More here


###

More delicious Graysonesque Goodness!!! He will not yield!!!

I'm gettin' to lovin' this guy, Alan Grayson!



No comments: